Publications

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Benjamin Esty is the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Over the years, he has taught a variety of courses ranging from advanced corporate finance and project finance to competitive strategy and leadership. He... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

April 2005 (Revised June 2006)
Case

NTT DoCoMo, Inc.: Mobile FeliCa

By: Stephen P. Bradley, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Masako Egawa and Akiko Kanno

Managers of DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone company, are formulating a strategy for mobile FeliCa: contactless integrated circuits that will be built into DoCoMo phones, allowing them to be used for quick and convenient retail or commuter fare payments, building... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Expansion; Alliances; Wireless Technology; Information Technology Industry; Communications Industry; Japan

Career Coach

Warren Radtke

Warren (Kellogg '60) is a HBS Career and Professional Development Consultant and a Confidential Advisor to C-Suite Executives and Entrepreneurs. He has held executive positions in public and privately held companies as well as in the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All); Financial Services (All)

September 1998
Case

Vanguard Group, Inc. (1998), The

By: Andre F. Perold

Since the beginning of 1997, Vanguard's assets under management have increased more than 60% from $240 billion to almost $400 billion, making it second in market share only to Fidelity. Vanguard views this success as another vindication of its low-cost strategy of... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Cost Management; Investment Funds; Product; Service Operations; Performance Expectations; Competition; Consolidation; Expansion; Internet; Financial Services Industry

December 2020
Case

VIA Science (A)

By: Juan Alcácer, Rembrand Koning, Annelena Lobb and Kerry Herman

Via (a) captures the early days of the data analytics startup as founders Gounden and Ravanis considered which markets offer the right opportunities for their firm and what kinds of experiments will help them narrow their choice. Supplement Via (b) reveals the... View Details

Keywords: Data Analytics; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Strategy; Business Startups; Markets; AI and Machine Learning; Telecommunications Industry; Utilities Industry; United States; Japan

September 2015
Technical Note

FIELD 2: Situation Analysis

By: Jill Avery

In this note, we present a method, the 5 C's Analysis, for collecting and analyzing information about the internal and external environments that firms face. This analysis will enable you to develop design ideas for a new product or service for your Global Partner that... View Details

Keywords: Design Thinking; Innovation; Market Research; Marketing; Customers

07 Jun 2023
Blog Post

My One Case: MBA Class of 2023 Looks Back

students discuss and debate potential solutions with fellow classmates, bringing their personal, cultural, and professional backgrounds to bear. While all cases help broaden the perspectives of future leaders, students find some to be... View Details

June 2018
Article

Personal and Social Usage: The Origins of Active Customers and Ways to Keep Them Engaged

By: Clarence Lee, Elie Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh

We study how digital service firms can develop an active customer base, focusing on two questions. First, how does the way that customers use the service postadoption to meet their own needs (personal usage) and to interact with one another (social usage) vary across... View Details

Keywords: Customer Engagement; Adoption Routes; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Marketing; Bayesian Estimation; Customers; Communication; Consumer Behavior; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science

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February 2009 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Exeter Group, Inc. (A)

By: Robert G. Eccles, Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman

Jonathan Kutchins and Mark Cullen, managing partners of IT consulting firm Exeter Group, Inc., are considering four potential client engagements. Three of them involve prominent universities, an area of market strength for the firm, and one involves a top-tier strategy... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Resource Allocation; Market Entry and Exit; Service Operations; Performance Capacity; Business Strategy; Information Technology; Consulting Industry

22 Mar 2024
Research & Ideas

Open Source Software: The $9 Trillion Resource Companies Take for Granted

figure. Without open source software and their ubiquitous code-creation networks, firms would pay an estimated 3.5 times more to build the software and platforms that run their businesses, or roughly $8.8 trillion, say Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Computer; Information Technology; Technology

February 2021 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Samantha Lin and Ariel Yang

In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time potential expansion into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full service... View Details

May 1983 (Revised November 1987)
Case

Technical Data Corp.: Business Plan

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains materials extracted from a business plan developed by the company in 1980. The purpose of the business plan was to raise $100,000 to finance the commencement of operations. The firm intended to provide analytical services to bond market traders. The product... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan

06 Jan 2015
News

Digital Business Models Should Have to Follow the Law, Too

March 2012 (Revised September 2012)
Case

INRIX

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Ryan Johnson

Since its founding in 2004, INRIX, a leading global provider of traffic information and driver services, had received four rounds of financing from leading venture capital (VC) firms and by 2012 had been cash flow positive for the past six quarters. Its founder, Bryan... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Leadership; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Startups; Organizational Structure; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Competitive Strategy; Service Industry; Service Industry; Washington (state, US)

Trevor Fetter is a Senior Lecturer and the Henry B. Arthur Fellow on the faculty of Harvard Business School. He teaches two MBA required courses: Leadership and Corporate Accountability, and Financial Reporting and Control. At HBS he has also taught a Short... View Details

Article

Know Your Customers' 'Jobs to Be Done'

By: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan

Firms have never known more about their customers, but their innovation processes remain hit-or-miss. Why? According to Christensen and his coauthors, product developers focus too much on building customer profiles and looking for correlations in data. To create... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management

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December 2019 (Revised December 2022)
Case

TXU (A): Powering the Largest Leveraged Buyout in History

By: Trevor Fetter, Erik Snowberg and Rebecca M. Henderson

This case is designed to support a lively discussion about the relative merits of shareholder vs. stakeholder perspectives in the context of a company that provides a vital public service that has important environmental implications. The 2007 purchase of TXU, the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Transformation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Environmental Sustainability; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Energy Generation; Non-Renewable Energy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry; Texas

June 2012
Case

Buro Happold (Abridged)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Ryan Johnson

In 1996, Ted Happold, the founder of the engineering services firm Buro Happold, passed away, and Padraic Kelly became the firm's new managing director (MD). One of his first initiatives was "Aim for Growth," which was intended to help the firm grow beyond its current... View Details

Keywords: Learning And Development; Managing Growth; Organizational Design; Diversification; Client Management; Leadership Skills; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership Development; Management Skills; Training; Programs; Customer Relationship Management